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One thing above all seemed to him to seal the argument. If he were God, he thought, would he build the worldwall on so enormous a scale? Or would he build it convenient to himself and shrink his people to fit?

Sudden lurching shifts of scale inside Tighe’s head made him feel almost dizzy. A religious vertigo.

The following morning the platon was woken by distant rumbling sounds, as if the sky were crumpling and collapsing far away. It was shortly after the dawn gale.

‘Kite-pilots!’ called Waldea. ‘Awake! Unshackle yourselves!’

In the confusion of bustle, Tighe dropped his belt; but fortunately it only fell to the branches of the trunk below and he was able to retrieve it easily. There was a fizzing excitement in the air; everybody knew what the distant thunderous sound meant. War.

At last, war! Tighe thought.

It was almost too exciting.

Waldea led the kite-pilots out of the wood and along the ledge. The guards in their eyrie were the only soldiers to be seen. Otherwise the ledges were deserted. In a matter of minutes, however, the platon worked their way round a spar and ran into a knot of soldiers. Riflemen, bomb-hurlers and sappers were crowded into a short, deep ledgeway.

‘Cardinelle Elanne!’ called Waldea. ‘I have my orders from the Cardinelle! Where is he? I must report.’

But nobody took any notice. The bangs and booms in the air sounded closer now. Waldea pushed on, leading the gaggle of kite-pilots behind him. They were simultaneously intimidated and excited by the scale of the hurly-burly around them.

Up a sloping ledge and along a ragged crag made broader by the sappers, pushing past soldiers of all sorts, they arrived eventually at a broader space: overhung, not long enough to be a shelf, but with a series of dug-out spaces in the wall at the back. Two tall wedges of dirt testified to the recent nature of the excavation.

Waldea told the kite-pilots to wait close by the wall and stay out of mischief whilst he himself went off to find Cardinelle Elanne or some superior officer. Tighe was disturbed at the haphazard nature of the military
command. He felt somehow that the process should be smoother, more natural.

The kite-pilots milled around, wound-up and agitated, chattering amongst themselves. Ravielre and Bel were now quite open about their romance; holding hands and talking quietly with one another.

With a cry to clear the path, a couple of soldiers hurried by carrying a blanket between them in which was slung something heavy. They passed through one of the dugout doorways, and Tighe realised with a start that the thing being carried in the blanket was a human body.

He went to the doorway and peered in, hoping to see Vievre, the old doctor. But it was murky indoors and whatever was happening inside was hectic, generating a great deal of noise and fuss. Tighe decided not to investigate further.

After about an hour Waldea returned and wordlessly led the kite-pilots away from the mini-shelf. They filed down some crudely carved stairs and on to another ledge, this one open, at the end of which was a much smaller dugout doorway. ‘This is our camp for now,’ Waldea announced.

The door was so small that the kite-spars and bundles had to be passed through first, with the kite-pilots following behind. Inside the earth was moist with the smell of recently dug soil. The wetness of the walls suggested that there were streams near-by, and Waldea sent Chemler off to investigate so that they could refill their flasks.

Mulvaine was told to tie up a grass torch and wedge it into the earth at the back of the dugout. By the time he had finished, and Waldea had lit the thing, Chemler was back. ‘There are several trickles along the ledge,’ he announced.

‘My children,’ announced Waldea, waving them all into a semi-circle before him with a sweep of his arm. ‘Battle has begun! Already we are attacking the evil of Otre at their heart.’

Nobody said anything.

‘Soon we shall be called – the generals, the Cardinelle, the Pope himself, have need of us. We are to fly and gather valuable information for the higher command. Soon they will call on us!’

Nobody came for an hour and the kite-pilots became restless. Waldea stalked out of the dugout, bending low to fit through the tiny door. He returned. Nothing happened.

Several kite-pilots napped, curled on the floor. Others went out on to the ledge to see what they could see, but it was no vantage point.

Waldea returned, clearly annoyed. The sun went over the wall and the dusk gale began. There was no door for the dugout hole, so the kite-pilots
huddled together at the far end of the hollowed space. The wind sucked the torch out, sang and shrieked, threw clods of earth through the door and tugged eagerly at clothes and hair. But it died down eventually.

The following morning, immediately after breakfast, Waldea departed again. This time he was gone for about half an hour, and came hurrying back in a state of great excitement.

‘Now, my children! Assemble your kites! You are to fly! The Cardinelle requires you to fly out and take an overview of the battlefield – report back with tactical information.’

The pilots assembled their kites on the sunlit ledge outside. Nobody spoke. Tighe unpacked his bundle and spread the fabric out; then he fitted the main kite-spar into its crossbeam. The usual sounds of distant booms and crumples made their strange music.

It felt odd to Tighe to strap himself to the kite once more; it had been so many days since he had flown. He was anxious too; uncertain what was required of him and keen not to incur Waldea’s displeasure. But the thrum and smell of war was all about him now and distracted him from the usual terror. Ati stepped forward off the world and Tighe followed him quickly, pushing away from the ledge into the burly morning wind.

He dropped until an updraught caught him and hauled him high. He realised he was drifting westwards, the wrong direction, and angled up and over to fall, gathering speed in the descent and sweeping east in the process. He pulled quite a long way awaywall, banked, climbed and turned again. The wall came round into view. Catching a little eddy of rising air, he wobbled his way back in.

The scene that grew before him was chaotic and, in the first instance, unimpressive. The wall was patched and scorched with small areas of black and grey, but was otherwise mostly green and purple with its grasses. Ledges were set at gentle angles to one another and a large shelf was thronged with blue coats. But as he swept in Tighe could see that the grey-coated Otre soldiers were occupying the upper ledges. Occasional glints of light, like a silver surface turning to bounce the sunlight, glittered on the lower ledges. Tighe flew closer still and saw that these bursts of light flew out of the end of the riflemen’s weapons, aimed upwards at the grey soldiers above them. He was a little above the central ledge.

Something shiny hurtled past Tighe’s kite. For an instant he thought it was some large shiny-skinned insect, but when he turned a little he could see that it was a fireball, arcing downwards now. It narrowly missed another kite – Tighe could not see whose – and fell away.

It took a heartbeat for Tighe to register the significance of this.

He was evidently too close to the wall now. He tried turning, zigzagging
to find lift, but there were no updraughts. He drifted closer still to the wall, on a level with the Otre-occupied areas. Gasping with fear, he swung in close enough to make out enemy faces, pale and helmeted. One tall soldier pointed out at him with an outstretched arm; his colleague lowered a rifle and there was a flicker.

The noise of the wind was so huge in Tighe’s ears as to drown out most of the sounds, but he certainly heard a breathy whistling sound and a
ploc
that made his kite shudder. He wobbled, turned and fell away, picking up speed that enabled him to swerve away from the wall. When he pulled out of the dive and swept upwards again he had time to look over his shoulder. There was a fist-sized hole in his kite.

His mind still did not register that he was in danger. The adrenalin of flying blotted out more refined appreciation of his situation. He circled round and tried to make a more concerted survey of the battlefield. The Otre occupied all the higher ledges and seemed to have built some sort of fortification along the overhung ledges further east. The Imperial army was concentrated on the central shelf; but Otre soldiers directly above were throwing things down on them. These objects flew out and then – improbably – swerved back in. As he flew lower to gauge their strength there was a spectacular explosion of red and orange and a wash of heat over Tighe’s face. The kite shuddered and lifted, and without controlling it Tighe was carried up and away from the wall.

He circled again, but the kite was awkward and stubborn, difficult to steer with a hole in its fabric. He pulled westward and flew in a trembling downward trajectory back to the launch ledge.

He landed awkwardly. Waldea was hurrying over to him as he picked himself up. ‘Well?’ he was calling. ‘Well? Is there something important?’

‘My kite, Master!’ said Tighe, breathless, unhitching himself from it. ‘Look at my kite.’

‘What? Kite? That’s no damage, hardly any damage. Report, Tig-he!’

‘Master, the Otre command the upper ledges. They are throwing fire upon our soldiers.’

‘And?’

Tighe couldn’t think of anything to say. Waldea pressed his hands into fists in frustration, and repeated himself: ‘And? And?’

‘And nothing, Master.’

‘Idiot! We know the Otre have the upper ledges. But what about further east? Did you not fly further east?’

‘My kite was damaged, Master.’

‘Repair your kite and go out again,’ snapped Waldea. ‘Fly east! We must know about the fortifications further east.’

Tighe, bewildered and scared at feeling so uncertain, rooted out a patch of leather, needle and thread from platon supplies in the dugout. He made his way back to the launch ledge to sit and repair the kite as best he could. He had never learned to sew, but was too ashamed to tell anybody.

He sat cross-legged and poked uselessly at the torn cloth with the needle. It was difficult making the plastic needle push through the leather and he hurt his thumb trying to force it. There was a rush of air and Ravielre landed a few yards from him.

‘My kite caught fire!’ he gasped, unbuckling himself. ‘I was struck by fire from the wall and the material caught. But I beat it out with my arm. Look at my kite!’ The material was singed and ragged on the left side.

‘Ravielre?’ shouted Waldea, hurrying over. ‘What have you to report?’

‘Nothing Master, only that my kite was on fire.’

‘Repair it,’ yelled Waldea in frustration. ‘Fetch materials from the dugout like Tig-he – repair it and go out again. Don’t return until you have something to report.’

Ravielre hurried away, leaving his still smoking kite lying on the ledge. Feeling increasingly awkward, Tighe poked ineffectually at the material he was trying to patch over the hole. When Ravielre returned, he was glad to have somebody to have a conversation with rather than work at the stitching. ‘You were on fire!’ he said.

‘It was a dizzy-bomb,’ said Ravielre, brushing the charred pieces free from the wing of his kite. He was in a state of excitement.

‘What is dizzy-bomb?’

‘You are an ignorant barbarian,’ said Ravielre automatically. ‘They are bombs, with metal blades attached by a cord. Throw them away from the world and the blades spin and pull the bomb back in towards the world downwall.’

‘Bombs!’ said Tighe, amazed and impressed.

‘They are bags of leather really,’ Ravielre confided. ‘They have a fuse and are full of powder. But they explode with a mass of fire!’

Deftly, Ravielre patched over a stretch of leather, stretching it taut and stitching with dextrous fiddling motions of one hand. Tighe watched in amazement. He was ready to go out again in minutes.

Waldea had come back. ‘Tig-he! You are still waiting? Fly again, go out and fly again.’

‘I have not yet patched the hole in my kite,’ Tighe murmured, ashamed.

‘What? I cannot hear you if you speak so small. There’s no time to waste – I have to report your intelligence directly to Cardinelle Elanne. Get out again!’

‘My kite …’

‘You can fly perfectly well with only a small hole – that is only a small hole.’

He manhandled Tighe upright and would have physically inserted him into his kite if he had not been distracted by the arrival of another kite-pilot at the ledge, a girl called Stel. Tighe had time to overhear the beginning of their conversation as he strapped himself in. ‘What will you report?’ snapped Waldea. ‘My shoulder,’ whimpered Stel. ‘It is hurt, popped I think.’ ‘Shoulder?’ bellowed Waldea. ‘Shoulder?’ shouting in an enormous voice – and that was the sound Tighe had in his ears as he stepped off the world again and flew away.

The kite was wobbly and unpredictable, but could be flown. Tighe circled and circled, and made his way very slowly eastwards against what were now difficult contrary winds. The battlefield was clearer to him now because he was more used to the logic of the vista. He could see the soldiers crammed along their ledges, trying to kill and dislodge their enemies above or below. He could see where one stairway, which had evidently once been used to link the central shelf and the higher ledges, had been destroyed – the actual steps kicked and blasted featureless on the wall. Sappers, from which army Tighe could not tell, had attempted to build another stairway to provide access either up or down: spars poked out of the wall, some of them still burning, most blackened and cracked.

The pattern of lines and diagonals was emphasised by the flurrying action of men moving back and forth, and picked out with sparkling flashes and occasional belches of smoke. Grey puffs, like tiny clouds, swept across and upwards, dragging their shadows over the undulating surface of the wall.

Tighe struggled for several hours, making slow progress eastwards, his repeated circles drawing the attention of snipers from the upper ledges. Several projectiles whispered past him, one catching the sole of his shoe and unzipping the leather so that the cold grabbed his right foot. He was straining to look east, to look carefully at the fortifications of the Otre, but eventually the sun rose too high and the updraughts began to die. There was nothing for it now but to fly back to the base ledge: if he stayed out too long he would lose lift altogether.